Nathan's Insights

Over the last 12 months, I’ve been slowly upgrading and fixing up my apartment. This started with painting the apartment, replacing an old bed, replacing the toilet, replacing the blinds / curtains, and replacing the couches.

All of this work was done with an eye to freshen up and brighten up the apartment and make it a more liveable space.

Back in late 2024 I also booked kitchen renovation and flooring replacement jobs. These works finally started three weeks ago and are almost finished. My cats will be looking forward to the work being finished so the disruptions to their lives stop.

The previous kitchen was a very small and confined space. The renovation is very extensive and resulted in a much-expanded area with the knocking down of a pillar and a bench expanding further into the apartment against the wall.

My friend Azru, who lived in the apartment for a short with my best friend Jon, greatly assisted in picking out the colours and the many options for the renovation. My sister Lana also helped select from the options that Arzu and I ended up selecting.

The blue carpet was replaced by bright hybrid floorboards. The floorboards also replaced the tiles in the old kitchen area.

Today the new kitchen area is being repainted and on Monday the last small jobs will be completed. It’s been quite a journey (and expensive) to get to this stage and I’m very happy with the outcome and looking forward to fully utilising the area.

The last step in this upgrade will be the bathroom and toilet area renovations. This requires me to move out of the apartment for 6 weeks which will occur during my extended Australia, Middle East, Europe and Africa trip starting mid-November 2026. 

In truth when I first started thinking about the apartment upgrade, following paying out my mortgage, the first thing I thought about was fixing my bathroom. However, this ended up needing to be the last area upgraded due to cost, complexity and the need to be away from my apartment for an extend period (so best to align to long trip).

With these works finished on Monday, and all payments being made in the next few weeks, it is time to establish my travel and bathroom budgets. I find having these events helps me focus and save. It’s time to get into research mode for 54 world trip in 18 months time 🙂

The next stage commences on Tuesday!